Richard

In San Francisco, 40-year-old Angela Silva threw her infant baby boy in the garbage can in front of her house -- but wait -- she actually had a very good reason. No case of child abuse here-- rather quite the opposite. As Silvia was walking out of her garage, she was approached by a pit bull -- an angry pit bull. Angela said her son started to cry and that aggravated the dog even more. Right before the dog attacked, Silvia threw the kid in the trash can to protect him and then suffered injuries on both arms as she tried to keep the animal from attacking her child. A neighbor heard the screams, rushed over to help and the dog finally ran away. Police arrested the dog's owner for outstanding warrants and the dog has been turned over to police. (NBC News)


I love dogs as much as I love fish, but from where I sit, pitbulls should be banned by law and until such time, their owners face an automatic manslaughter charge if ever they maul someone in the public domain.. a business tycoon living a few blocks from me got off scot-free after his pitbulls broke through his fence and killed a guy who had the bad luck to be passing by.. I guess because he was a poor gardener who'd just finished a hard day's work trying to provide for his poor family, he was an easily written off statistic, so the businessman wasn't held to task for not securing his dogs in a better manner.. as karma would have it though, the F.B.I. has built a case against him for a number of shady deals with American companies, and he's currently fighting a losing battle to avoid extradition to U.S. courts.. so all's well that ends well, he's going down!

Butterfly

What a fast thinking woman!! thanks for posting that.
Pit bulls are being banned in many US cities.
Carol

mlinden84

I agree people should be held responsible for their pets.
However, not ALL pitbulls are mean and looking to attack. My parents have a 5 year old pitbull that is just as sweet as can be (as is their 8 year old border collie). My 3 year old daughter plays in the backyard with him, there has never been a reason not to trust him. He is regularly around people and does fine. He is really just a big baby, love belly rubs, and playing fetch. I think people are too quick to judge the breed of dog, not the dog as an individual (as well as the way the dog was raised, if you train a dog to attack, it will).

Allie

Smart Mom!!

I don't think banning the breed is going to solve the problem...there will be another tough dog that will be in the spotlight someday. It's the type of people who make the dogs mean or evil. Every nasty pit bull I've come across was treated like poop. The well behaved one were treated like kids. It's so unfair that bad pet owners have to ruin things for others. I read a lot about pit bulls and they are just sensitive dogs. They feel feelings like we do...only they cannot tell us what is wrong. Unfortunately they have the jaws of steel that they do...so if they are scared & bite...ouch! Pit Bulls don't belong with a family...they should be the main focus of their master's attention.
We had a dog which was 3/4 American pit bull terrier and 1/4 yellow Labrador retriever. Looked & acted more like a pit bull tho. He was a big baby. He got along with 2 of the cats we have now & loved kids/people. We had to give him up b/c most apartments here don't allow dogs let alone 60lb 14 month old pit bull mixes. : We found him a great home tho.

Butterfly

I agree you can't blame the breed. The owner should be responsible for their animals. One of the guys at another site I visit just had his little dog killed by a Rottweiler that jumped his fence. The poor little chichuaha (sp) was in his own back yard. So any animal that isn't watched and taught better can be dangereous.
Carol

Howeyg

good thinking

heres a couple of horrifying storys about viscious dogs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3033171.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/s...re/6270655.stm

Sabi

That was fast thinking!
Pit bulls are dangerous. Some that lives up the road here had a similar experience and the babies arms were bitten as well as the mother.

Chief_waterchanger

There was a story on a talk-show.. Montel or something. The woman let her two kids (8 and 10) walk the half a block to their bus-stop each morning, she would be at home getting ready for work. One morning her youngest came running home in a panic, the older one had jumped a fence like something stupid and was attacked by the pit bulls (I think the dogs should not be blamed if they were trained as guard dogs they are doing just that), but the problem arises when the woman goes to save her kid. She runs to the site, jumps the fence in her house coat and slippers to save the kid. she tossed him over the fence and before she could get over it the dogs attacked her. They literally ATE the muscles out of both her forearms and one of her calves. She has minimal use of her hands and has to use a cane I think was the final result. (She was 30ish?) I am torn however on what should become of the breed. I am NEVER for the extinction of any type of creature, and if kept properly anything is safe to a point. Never fully safe, as there are always chances of mishaps, but reasonably safe.

Isabella

Wow, poor child and mother. Thanks God nothing more serious happened to any of them. As for the pitbulls ... I've heard so many contradicting opinions about them. Some people say they're the sweetest dogs you'll ever meet and they'd never trade them for any other dogs. And others say these dogs are dangerous to the public. As for myself ... I love ALL dogs, even pitbulls. But I'd probably never decide to have a pitbull due to all the laws and restrictions associated with these dogs. I think these dogs are being unfairly punished for human negligence. If you are going to get a pitbull, be prepared for a possibility that the dog might get aggressive. It's an ANIMAL, after all. It doesn't attack because it hates or feels jealous. It attacks because it feels threatened or some other reason that animals use to attack other animals and even people. A dog does not understand laws made by humans, and it's an animal that acts according to its own INSTINCTS. You can't change nature. Knowing that, either keep your pitbull in such a place where it won't be able to hurt anybody, or don't get a pitbull at all. But don't blame the dog for attacking someone. The dog didn't happen to be by that mother and child all by itself. Its owner has let it out.

Harley

It's not the dogs complete fault! At somepoint in the dogs life the owner played really rough with the dog or the owner trained the dog to do this! REMEMBER WE DID THIS TO THEM!

Isabella

Exactly.

BrianCB

I just dont think it is fair that people would have to live in fear that one day themselves or a child will be attacked by a dog. I love all animals but I have a serious trust issue with dogs, my best friend has a rottwiller and it is pretty old I have petted it before but even now I dont trust it when it comes and sniffs me I just think it will attack at any moment but it is a silly dog and I never let my guard down around him.

As for pit bulls I dont want to sound cruel but I think it should not be sold and made sterile so it cant breed. I believe people come first and I hear to many reports about pit bulls to consider myself or anyone else safe around them, I think they were breed to be more aggressive and thier jaws lock when they bite.

Chief_waterchanger

Making that a law would do nothing more than jack up the cost of them and provide a good black market supply of them. If people are forced to have heavily strict measures in place to keep them and laws are put in place to say the owners will be charged as though they themselves commited the assault/murder if the dog does attack someone, I know it will never be a perfect solution, but it may help. Life is full of risks, that is part of the mystery to it, there is no cut and dry solution.

Isabella

I understand and respect your position, but sterilizing complately all pitbulls sounds like a purposeful elimination of a species alltogether. Something like the Nazi camps during WWII attempting to eliminate the entire Jewish race alltogether. That sounds extremely scary and inhuman.

First humans domesticate dogs and make pitbulls their "little pets" but then it turns out pitbulls can be aggressive, so why not just take the easy way out and eradicate the entire pitbull species, right? As if pitbulls asked to be our pets, and as if every person that has a pitbull got this pitbull because the pitbull came to the person itself. Once again, it's something like newborn babies. Do they ask to be brought into this world? No, it's the mom's and dad's decision to have a baby, not the baby's decision! Therefore to blame this baby for its existence is totally irrational.

BrianCB

Thats it the animal was "breed" to be agreessive and it has no choice but to be the way it so it has no buisness being a pet, being in neighborhoods were it can break free and if it chooses to snap on a child or an innocent person minding thier own buisness people should not have to be put at that risk even though I know in some foriegn countries people are actually hunted by tigers and other preadators. I didnt mean to sound so absolute but maybe if something was done to maybe lower its popularity then I would be fine, I just cant stand to her people who mind thier own buisness being attacked by a loose dog especially children.

COBettaCouple

I see WAY more stories of pit bulls killing or seriously injuring people than ALL other breeds of dogs combined, even wolf-dogs. People treat all breeds of dogs both good and cruelly, yet this one breed seems to stand out in aggression and violence. Rottweilers do show up in stories here & there, but not with anything approaching the regularity of pit bulls. I know around here, people in the more rural areas like to get pit bulls for their viciousness (property protection).

I'm not in favor of sterilizing pit bulls to end the breed, but I wouldn't compare sterilizing pit bulls to the purposeful elimination of the Jewish race though. They weren't being prohibited from producing children, but inhumanely tortured and butchered. I do see the reasoning in banning them from metro areas. They would seem better suited to homes that didn't put them into contact with so much activity and unknown people/animals. I believe Denver banned them several years ago. I would LOVE to see the owners held 100% responsible in a pit bull attack. I think that part of public opinion towards this breed stems from the fact that owners aren't held responsible. we're all responsible for the pets in our care and, within reason, responsible for their actions.

Isabella

Dave, lol, maybe it was a bit too extreme of me to compare sterilizing pitbull dogs to the Nazi's "final solution". But when talking about other people's and even animal's various situations, I always to try to put myself in the shoes of these people and these animals in these situations. In this particular situation, we're talking about sterilizing all pitbulls. I know that if someone wanted to sterilize me and all the same people like me, I'd be HORRIFIED at that idea and I'd see them as being Nazi-like. It would be terribly unfair and inhumane. Nazis did, in fact, sterilize people - not on such a large scale as killing people, but they'd sterilize those in the camps (not only Jews, but others as well) as well as their own citizens! They'd especially sterilize women who gave birth to defective children and women born with certain physical defects. I don't even want to write about this anymore because it's so disgusting and unimaginable to me.

Amorinthe

Yes, indeed exactly. This is an animal that has, not just through breeding but by their very nature, is aggressive and very strong (read:able to follow through with their aggressive tendancies). We have gun laws, we have vehicle laws, we have restrictions on alcohol and drugs, but very limits on owning dangerous animals. I think it's a bit extreme to compare animal control of a dangerous creature (we wouldn't let someone have an aligator in suburbia!) to WWII Genocide.